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I'm toying with the idea of building a media center PC (possibly in mini-ITX form factor) and am looking for some opinions on PVR software and TV tuner cards.

From what I've researched so far, SnapStream's Beyond TV looks like a good program. It supports an unlimited number of tuners and can recognize and record unencrypted QAM signals. But are there any others that I've missed? I'm not ready to take the plunge into the Linux world yet so something like MythTV is out for now.

Here's one of my over-arching ideas: don't pay more than I have to for digital/HD programming.

I've prefer to stay hooked up to basic cable and just use a QAM tuner to watch/record/time-shift digital and HD cable programming (at least the stuff that Comcast is not scrambling - like local network channels, etc.). But I'd also like to be able to record OTA HD and analog cable signals.

Does anyone have any experience with Windows-based PVR software and various TV tuner cards?

--Alan

I tried building a MythTV box a while back. Installed Knoppmyth even got an HD Tuner card to use with it. It was going smooth until I had to know what cable standard my provider was using.

Anyhow, back to Windohs, check out the ATI Wonder cards. They come with decent PVR software that should serve most of your needs.

EDIT:
Here's a writeup on Tom's Hardware that you may find useful.
Linky

Myth is pretty cool, but can be a pain to configure and/or find hardware with *nix drivers.

AIW cards are definitely nice for the money.

If you're building one and want to stay in the windows side of the house, you might want to look into media center edition.

complacent wrote:If you're building one and want to stay in the windows side of the house, you might want to look into media center edition.

Great suggestion if you don't want to get into the *nix side of things. Check out the Hauppauge cards as well. I have a 350 that I'm selling